Best CRT-monitor

[Gavia Arctica]

What is best CRT-monitor (19 ") under 400 €.

Gavia Arctica

[CyberDyneSystems]

Any Sony Aperture Grill monitor,. CDP-E440 is the "bargain" sporting the same tube as the pricier CDP-G420 with reduced electronics., there is also the HMD A-440. I am not sure the difference between it and the "E" series other than color (stylish silver)



I own two Sony Aperture grill monitors now,. a G-500 21" (current model is G-520) and an FW 900 24" I went to the Sony's after I had purchased a 19" G-400 (current model G420) for my girlfreinds birthday.

When I installed it,. I was blown away. This monitor tht I had purchased on sale (clearing old stock for the new model) positively blew the doors off my then current Viewsonic Top of the Line P-815 21" monitor!

Since seeing these monitotrs in use I can say that nothing else I have seen compares.

Mitsubishi also make good Aperture Grills, as do NEC but to me its Sony all the way.

[Malaxos1]

I agree about a Sony monitor. I don't think it has to be a Sony brand monitor but can be any number of monitors that have a Sony Trinitron tube. I have a 19" Quantex monitor that has a Trinitron tube in it and it's awesome. I can set color temp on it, I have mine set to daylight. This drastically helps with calibration. My last monitor was a 17" Princeton trinitron. I have to say that I have an A+ certification and have repaired or worked on hundreds of computors and the Princeton monitor that I had was the sharpest I had ever seen. It had a 22mm dot pitch and had a 135 refresh rate. I traded it for the 19" Quantex purley because of the size, if it wer not 19" I would still have the Princeton...Dean

[CyberDyneSystems]

Malaxos is correct,.. there are many other manufacturers that repackage Sony trinitron's as there own. Quantex is no longer with us (bankrupt) but they,. like Dell sold there own brand monitors with PCs that were Sony's through and through.

In fact the boneheads at PCworld often rate Dell monitors as there favorites. For some reason they can't get it through there head that the Dell is just a Sony that says "Dell" on it! :D

[where1]

Thanks for this thread. I am new to digital photography and found several answers here from lurking about already. One of the things I want to get is a newer computer, dedicated to digital stills and video.
I know very little on computers. I have an old 17 inch Sony Trinitron CDP1730 monitor I purchased used a few years ago. Would this be a good monitor for a beginner such as myself?
Or maybe just bite the credit card bullet and get a new monitor at the same time?

[John_T]

I'd suggest you chew on your credit card to prevent you from chewing your nails in frustration.

[justme_dc]

The Sony Artisan is the industry standard pretty much, it's in the neighborhood of $1700.USD. There is nothing to my knowlege better than the Artisan on the market currently. The Lacie Electronblue IV 20inch is pretty good too at around $729. Lacie also makes a 19 inch version for around $379.USD. It all depends on how critical your color matching needs are. The Lacies are pretty nice.

[GhillieSkins]

I've got a NEC MultiSync FE991 (Diamondtron SuperBright) and it was the best $500 I"ve ever spent for my PC. This combined with a Nividia T1 4600VT chipset will give you astounding quality graphic views...plus it's fast! What I like best about the monitor is that there is a button in which you can select the CRT brightness mode; Most monitors over a few years seem to loose thier brightness quality, but monitors with SB are great....you may want to look into this.

[John_T]

Well, everybody will tell you something else based on their own subjective experience.

I'll tell you Sony GDM-F520 and a Matrox graphic card and wouldn't touch nVidia if you gave it too me, but needs are individual.

[MiG82]

Is picture quality any better with the higher class Sonys? I have an E200 (entry level 17" which still costs a fair bit compared to other brands) and I was thinking of upgrading to a G level 19" (G420 I think).

I know that the higher end ones have faster refresh rates at high resolutions, but are there other significant differences?

I suppose I should try one of these Matrox thingamajigs out too. :) Though I don't know how I can keep 3D performance (for games) and have excellent 2D.

[Malaxos1]

There is a difference, this can be found in two areas, refresh rate and dot pitch. With refresh rate you want the highest number you can affird to get and with dot pitch you want the lowest number you can get. I don't know if you have ever seen this but sometimes you can see a monitor flicker while looking at it from the corner of your eyes. While you don't really notice it looking straight at your mind does. This causes fatigue and tiredness. If you are going to spending some time working on or viewing photos you don't want anytthing with a refresh rate of less than 85. Also note that the higher the size of the screen you set, for example 1024x768 the refresh rate will go down. So mke sure you ask questions like what is the refresh rate at the resolution you want. You don't want to get home and find that the refresh rate was 85 at the store and only 60 at your desired screen size. Last the dot pitch has to do with actual image quality, I would get something for viewing photos at 25mm-22mm with the smallest number being best. Also worth noting is that some video cards will allow you to tweak the refresh rate, for example, on my monitor get a max refresh rat of 85 at 1024x768, however my video card's software will allow me to boost it to 120. What a difference in the image quality I get now. Anyway I hope I was able to help...Dean

[Gavia Arctica]

Thanks very much, now I know what monitor. I need
better video card. Matrox maybe ?

Ps. Next I need more money .

[CyberDyneSystems]

Based on the responses of this thread Sony seems to have made a clean sweep :)

I concur (as do most serious reviews) that Matrox makes the best consumer level (and pro) Cards for 2d image editing/graphic design.

If you have to have a gaming card like an Nvidia,. you could allways try a dual monitor/dual card setup. Your gaming card/monitor would have to be the primary rig. But you could edit on the Matrox/Sony.....

My first dual monitor rig used two cards,.. (it was before "dual Head"

but In the end it would be easier to have two PCs :)

Again,. this is only a concern to those that need to have the latest in gaming 3D tech.... whoch serves no other purpose at all.

[MiG82]

Malaxos1, yes refresh rate is important. I can see 75 Hz flickering head on (let alone through peripheral vision) so I recommend 85 Hz at the desired resolution.
I don't go higher than 85 Hz because I already can't see the flickering and going higher seems to blur the text (video card's fault).
This reminds me, people who say that CRTs are blurry should see whether the situation improves at a lower refresh rate. If so, get a better video card. On the same monitor my Gf4 MX440 delivers a much sharper picture (horizontally) at 1152 x 864 @ 85 Hz than my old Gf2.
Remember that this is analog crap. If the video card is having trouble delivering a crisp waveform (quick ramp up and down between adjacent pixels) to the monitor then the monitor beam will be fuzzy too.

CDS, is there such a thing as a box that would allow you to switch the monitor's input between two cards without much signal degredation?
BTW, good 3D cards help in CAD too (which I occassionally use).

[Malaxos1]

My monitor by default is 85hz at 1024x768, I can clearly see a difference in image quality at 120hz. It's so much better. Besides have a sharper edges, the contrast as better as well. I should mention that I am using the GF2 as well...Dean

[John_T]

MIG, if your monitor has both DDC and BNC connectors, you can hang one card on one and the other on the other. I have never heard of a good monitor switcher box, but I do know that even cable extensions, low quality cables, pinched cables and a variety of other things will give you ghosting and a lot of problems, often very subtle that are very hard to track down when you don't suspect the monitor cable.

I run my monitors at 1600X1200 @100Hz and 1 billion colors, but the single thing that makes my screen sharp and enjoyable is calibrating with Spyder Pro. Nothing improves even a lousy monitor like calibrating.

I have a Matrox Parhelia 256MB graphic card. The 2D is the best in the industry, but the 3D is also well above acceptable. I've had Matrox cards for many years and my experience is that the 2D is always the best even on the less expensive cards, and unless you are really a game freak, an fps maniac, the Matrox cards are adequate for most games.

[MediaMagic]

Just to add another basic thumbs up for sony.. with a twist. These are 21inch rather than 19.. but I really like the 21's because you can keep more tools available on the screen.

The artisan (CDM G529K) is probably the top of the line for digital imaging. It comes with the hood and a calibration system. Info:

http://shop.monitorsdirect.com/product.asp?sku=2229257


However, my personal favorite Sony is the F520 It has the .22 pitch as opposed to the .24. This is the monitor slated for purchase with my Christmas bonus this year. I have a calibration spyder already, so this monitor make more sense for me.

http://shop.monitorsdirect.com/product.asp?sku=1678429

That being said.
My monitor blew out a short while ago and I had to make an interim purchase to keep me going, and as it turns out, it's actually a fantastic monitor. It's the Cornerstone p1750 and I am very pleased with it. For $640.00US, it's a fantastic value for the money. Comes with 5 year warranty. The specs are comparable to the Artisan (sans hood and calibration system). Having calibrated this monitor with the spyder, I am having serious second thoughts of even buying the sony now. This monitor is delivering everything I need for superb digital editing and the screen matches the prints. It has higher resolutions and refresh rates than either Sony, but, the one thing it can't match is the .22 pitch of the F520 (the cornerstone is .24 as is the Artisan). I am so pleased with the quality of this "mid range" monitor that I think I will probably just wait until it dies and see what's available on the market at that time. I would suggest to anyone considering a high end monitor purchase to take a serious look at this monitor and use the extra thousand saved (minus the price of a good calibration spyder) and buy another L quality lens. It really is that good of a monitor.

Info:
http://shop.monitorsdirect.com/product.asp?sku=847771


The F520, though, with its .22 pitch is really impossible to beat as far as sheer image smoothness is concerned. That's the monitor all others are measured by at this point in time. But, if you are not going to buy the F520, I'd seriously put my copy of this Cornerstone p1750 monitor up against any other Sony model and the visual difference would be damn near less than the human eye can detect (Artisan included, we have both the F520's and the Artisans at my work, I've seen them both up close and personal for a while, of course, *I* don't get the good stuff at work, those are reserved for the cad guys and graphic artists, it seems we lowlife programmers get whatever they can get a hundred of for the cheapest price).

Also, Monitors Direct is a wonderful comparison site as it allows you to select different monitors and compare specs side by side. Pretty cool feature.

David

[CyberDyneSystems]

mig82 wrote:


CDS, is there such a thing as a box that would allow you to switch the monitor's input between two cards without much signal degredation?
BTW, good 3D cards help in CAD too (which I occassionally use).

Indeed there is,. what you need is a good electronic KVM swith (Keyboard, Video, Mouse) They make video only switches but they are oddly more expensive.

A good KVM will have NO discernable degradation. (a bad one however can be horrible to the point of being useless)

I have two that I recomend highly..
Belkin Omnicube,
D-link DKVM-4,

Why I have two I won't get into here,. but they both work flawlessly and allow me to control up to 4 PCs with one Keyboard Monitor and mouse at the tap of a keyboard button. They require no software to function.

[CyberDyneSystems]

However, my personal favorite Sony is the F520 It has the .22 pitch as opposed to the .24. This is the monitor slated for purchase with my Christmas bonus this year. I have a calibration spyder already, so this monitor make more sense for me.


F520 is the best 21" out there,. I agree totally!


//But then there is the FW-900 24"....... :D :D

seen here dwarfing the G-500 21"

http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze2hdzu/pics/Skynet004.jpg

:D

The artisan line adds a lot of bells and whistles to make calibration easier among other things,. but in reality they can not acheive any better results than the "satndard' Sony's on which they are based. (I'm not sure which models but I assume they are the "G" series )

[MediaMagic]

Whoa! now that's a monitor! :-) It does dwarf the 21. How do you like that thang? I see you are running a dual, but, does the perspective of the wider area throw you off? I like the bigger screens for keeping tons of toolbars ready.

[where1]

Well I bit the bullet and went with a 21" Sony Trinitron.

Now I just have to learn how to use all this new stuff and still find time to shoot. And work, to pay for it all. :)

Thanks for this thread.